Apart from Bela Lugosi's Dead and a decent cover of Ziggy Stardust I thought they were one of the worst of the Bowie fixated Gothic bands of the 80's. (although perhaps all Gothic inspired bands have an entry level Bowie fetish?)

Ah, Bauhaus... The very first songs I managed to play were "Kick in the Eye", "Dark Entries" and "Bela Lugosi's Dead", when I was 17.So, Bauhaus is a long story for me...

I have always been pleased to hear a band which could enrich its music without losing a true writing identity and focus on the creation of a rather daring artistical project. Only Siouxsie and the Banshees could compare to them, as the Cure had turned to an auto-parody for years and Joy Division was a bit monolithic (not to mention my personal problems with the singing of late Ian Curtis).

Ah, Bauhaus... The very first songs I managed to play were "Kick in the Eye", "Dark Entries" and "Bela Lugosi's Dead", when I was 17.So, Bauhaus is a long story for me...

I have always been pleased to hear a band which could enrich its music without losing a true writing identity and focus on the creation of a rather daring artistical project. Only Siouxsie and the Banshees could compare to them, as the Cure had turned to an auto-parody for years and Joy Division was a bit monolithic (not to mention my personal problems with the singing of late Ian Curtis).

I ain't a massive Joy Division fan BTW but what do you mean by monolithic ?

Although I agree the Cure eventually degenerated into self parody, they were still pretty damn nifty when Bauhaus were enjoying their 15 minutes of fame ?

Shouldn't that be 'Double Dare' to buy In the Flat Field. Anyway, nobody will be surprised to hear me defend Bauhaus and especially this album as I sometimes have it as my Avatar thingy! I love it. I see it seperately to all their other discs as it was the only one I bought when it came out. (And to me it has a very different sound to later efforts) The first two tracks 'Double Dare' and the title track just amazed me when I first heard it. Original and inventive. (Dark Entries is not on original record).

Calliing them Bowie fixated is just lazyness They did do Ziggy but they did it as a joke (A very good one mind you) . Bowie liked them enough to invite them to do the intro to The Hunger.

Like some of the others in this thread, I like Bela Lugosi and little else by them. I don't know why, I just never cared for them as a whole.

The weird thing is that I like most of the derivatives that I know about: I absolutely love Love and Rockets, "Express" is one of my all time favorite albums and "Earth, Sun, Moon" is great as well. Tones on Tail was great as well, I really would have liked to have heard more from them. Peter Murphy's solo work is great as well, he has such a compelling voice.

Edited by Roland113 - December 19 2009 at 08:36

-------someone please tell him to delete this line, he looks like a noob-------

I don't have an unnatural obsession with Disney Princesses, I have a seven year old daughter and coping mechanisms.

Shouldn't that be 'Double Dare' to buy In the Flat Field. Anyway, nobody will be surprised to hear me defend Bauhaus and especially this album as I sometimes have it as my Avatar thingy! I love it. I see it seperately to all their other discs as it was the only one I bought when it came out. (And to me it has a very different sound to later efforts) The first two tracks 'Double Dare' and the title track just amazed me when I first heard it. Original and inventive. (Dark Entries is not on original record).

Calliing them Bowie fixated is just lazyness They did do Ziggy but they did it as a joke (A very good one mind you) . Bowie liked them enough to invite them to do the intro to The Hunger.

ITFF is quality.

Nah, I might be wrong but at least I took the trouble to research it: (from an Interview with Q Magazine June 1992) - there are countless other examples that betray the Bowie fanboy clone.

"It's the Jungian analysis thing. I try to avoid the transference of
their interpretation of my personality on to me, this preconceived montage of who you
are."

Has Murphy ever experienced these feelings himself?

"I did when I met Bowie," he admits. "I played a part in the film The
Hunger. Catherine Deneuve was there too, so it was doubly strange for me. But I sat there
with Bowie and I thought, Well, there he is. And that was it. He was there as a human
being and the whole thing was exorcised. I immediately felt OK about it. That first moment
to me was very important. I thought, Of course, here is a person doing a job."

And, during this historic encounter, did Bowie happen to mention that Murphy had
shamelessly appropriated his singing style?

"No, he didn't," our slender chum snaps. "Why should he? It isn't true.
My voice is much lower and much more operatic. I don't agree with that idea at all."

". . . All right, I sang like him when Bauhaus did Ziggy Stardust. That was the
entire point. But Bowie didn't mention anything to me about my vocals sounding like his,
just like I didn't mention to him the fact that his voice contained traces of Dylan, Iggy
Pop, Anthony Newley and Frank Sinatra. It's been overplayed. It's a cliché that I sound
like Bowie. It's just a cliché."

Notwithstanding the foregoing, those scoundrels in the British press were very fond of misquoting a singer they once described as a man wedged firmly up his own exhaust
pipe.

Shouldn't that be 'Double Dare' to buy In the Flat Field. Anyway, nobody will be surprised to hear me defend Bauhaus and especially this album as I sometimes have it as my Avatar thingy! I love it. I see it seperately to all their other discs as it was the only one I bought when it came out. (And to me it has a very different sound to later efforts) The first two tracks 'Double Dare' and the title track just amazed me when I first heard it. Original and inventive. (Dark Entries is not on original record).

Calliing them Bowie fixated is just lazyness They did do Ziggy but they did it as a joke (A very good one mind you) . Bowie liked them enough to invite them to do the intro to The Hunger.

ITFF is quality.

Nah, I might be wrong but at least I took the trouble to research it: (from an Interview with Q Magazine June 1992) - there are countless other examples that betray the Bowie fanboy clone.

"It's the Jungian analysis thing. I try to avoid the transference of their interpretation of my personality on to me, this preconceived montage of who you are."

Has Murphy ever experienced these feelings himself?

"I did when I met Bowie," he admits. "I played a part in the film The Hunger. Catherine Deneuve was there too, so it was doubly strange for me. But I sat there with Bowie and I thought, Well, there he is. And that was it. He was there as a human being and the whole thing was exorcised. I immediately felt OK about it. That first moment to me was very important. I thought, Of course, here is a person doing a job."

And, during this historic encounter, did Bowie happen to mention that Murphy had shamelessly appropriated his singing style?

"No, he didn't," our slender chum snaps. "Why should he? It isn't true. My voice is much lower and much more operatic. I don't agree with that idea at all."

". . . All right, I sang like him when Bauhaus did Ziggy Stardust. That was the entire point. But Bowie didn't mention anything to me about my vocals sounding like his, just like I didn't mention to him the fact that his voice contained traces of Dylan, Iggy Pop, Anthony Newley and Frank Sinatra. It's been overplayed. It's a cliché that I sound like Bowie. It's just a cliché."

Notwithstanding the foregoing, those scoundrels in the British press were very fond of misquoting a singer they once described as a man wedged firmly up his own exhaust pipe.

Give it up, a Bowie wannabe

So he was a little surprised to find Bowie was a normal human and he was a fan. I think I would feel similarly as would a lot of young people meeting someone like Bowie. (Or anyone they are a fan of). I don't deny they were fans I just think to write them off for this is a bit harsh. We may as well stop listening to a whole rafter of music produced since the 60's for similar reasons.

I listen to ITFF and I don't hear David Bowie! Maybe I'm deaf!

They might not be as good as those bands from the 80's you mention but I disagree about how far off they are with at least this one.

I think they are brilliant, not Bowie at all really :-) well, the vocals are obviously, but the music not, more like a spooky take on Joy Division.In the Flat Field is a good place to start, I think only Black Sabbath's debut is equally creepy.

Perhaps I was a bit harsh - they do certainly have merit in small doses.

You gotta like Kick in the Eye ? agrroovy bass line

and Lagartija Nick?

Is it cos theyre English?

No, No, NO (I think they were from Northampton originally ?) My unadulterated loathing of the unrepentant poofs a.k.a. the English is restricted to those from their nest that run around after a white leather orb wearing white jerseys adorned with 3 lions. (You should know my untrammelled racism is purely a sporting neurosis by now )

I loved Bauhaus "back in the day" but not as much as a friend if mine who had the design from the Ziggy Stardust single tattooed on his upper arm. Unfortunately, he had his arm tensed while the tattooing was done, so the picture went a bit skewwhiff when he straightened it. It's since been tattooed over.

Burning From The Inside is one of my favourite Bauhaus albums, it takes me back to teenage evenings at another friend's house. He had 3 LPs; as well as the Bauhaus one he had Mudslide Slim by James Taylor and a Creedence Clearwater Revival album. A strange combination.

"The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar.... Now, that's my idea of a good time."

Time and trends didn't move as fast in the early 80s as they do now, so by the time Bauhaus starting being played regularly on college radio in the American midwest I believe they had already broken up.

I personally never took to them much back then, but after seeing this thread today I dug out some old compilation cassettes copped off of Wichita State University's KMUW after-midnight show circa 1983-1985 and was a bit surprised how many Bauhaus tracks appear on them. I agree with the Bowie influence observations above for the most part, especially the vocals. But listening to them a quarter-century later I'm surprised they're a bit more interesting now then they were in 1983. They certainly seem more authentic than Love & Rockets, who always struck me as too commercially-minded to be taken all that seriously.

"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor, starving kids all over the world I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."

I only have one Bauhaus CD that I bought about twenty years ago and haven't listened to it in almost as many years. I quite liked it but bought it for "Bela Lugosi's Dead" since The Hunger was one of my favourite movies, and The Hunger soundtrack did not have it on it. I also bought individual classical CDs for all of the music used in it (those classical pieces have remained favourites). It was a compilation CD -- it's in storage. I remember liking "In the Flat Fields" a lot from that CD.

A friend of mine offered me 25 bucks for the Bauhaus CD just for the privilege to destroy it with extreme prejudice -- I was too proud to accept.

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